Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
by My Ships
Summary: This is what happens after Ned proposes to Nancy. Nancy/Ned: Romantically & Nancy/Frank: Friendship (One-Sided Romance)


**I usually just make stories about Nancy/Frank romantically and sometimes friendly, but I wanted to change this up a bit and show that I'm also a Nancy/Ned shipper—just not as much as I am a Nancy/Frank shipper, obviously.**

**Please comment/PM me and tell me what you liked about it and what I can improve.**

**Reviews would be HIGHLY appreciated :)**

**If y'all have any fanfic requests, please PM me or, if you don't have an account, you can write a review on one my stories, including this one, and give me the prompt that you would like me to fulfill through there. As long as it isn't Rated M and it doesn't have too much cussing in it (or if it doesn't have to have cussing in it at all) I will GLADLY write it for you - as long as you review it ;)**

* * *

"Why..." Nancy didn't know what to say, how to start, where to begin! This was all sudden and unexpected yet completely expected. She knew that he would propose someday, but she didn't think that it would be on one of their romantic dates and on a day with sprinkling rain. "Ned... I-I don't know what to say..." Nancy looked down at the beautiful ring inside the black, velvet box that was in his hands. She knew that she was blushing more than she usually did.

She couldn't say no and embarrass Ned and herself right then and there, with people staring, but she also couldn't say yes on such short notice either.

Ned waggled his eyebrows up at her, trying to figure out whether she'd say yes or no. He hoped, with his whole heart, that she would say yes. He had been waiting for the day when she would say yes for months now. He had looked everywhere for the perfect ring. He went to so many different stores; he asked Nancy's friends, Nancy's dad, his friends, his parents, and Hannah Gruen which type of ring Nancy would like; and he made sure that everybody would be alright with him asking Nancy to marry him. He didn't want to admit it to anybody, but he had even called the Hardy brothers asking what type of ring Nancy would like and he even asked them what they'd think of him proposing—Joe was enthusiastic about the idea and he tried to help out as much as he could while Frank, although thinking about what type of ring Nancy would like and telling Ned about the different types of rings, he was most definitely uncomfortable and reluctant and nobody could deny it, no matter how much they may have wanted to - Frank hadn't tried to act reluctant and uncomfortable and he didn't want his true feelings to show, but it pained him deeply that it would be Ned getting the chance to marry Nancy while he didn't.

Nancy looked right into Ned's eyes after a few moments and, seeing the look in his eyes and expression on his face, she couldn't say no. She nodded her head up and down, letting the tears fall from her cheeks.

Ned slipped the beautiful, pearl ring on her finger. It wasn't too flashy and it wasn't too dull, it was just the right type of ring for Nancy's taste. Ned thought that it was beautiful but was sad that he hadn't thought to get a ring that looked like it did himself, it was Frank that had told Ned what Nancy's perfect ring would look like.

He got up from his position which, after a while, really started cramping his legs. He stood in front of Nancy and gently grabbed onto her hands. She was trying to stop crying and she was trying to conceal the tears for a strand of hair was out of her bun. Ned let go of one of her hands and delicately put the strand behind her ear. He used his free hand to tilt her head up so they would meet each others gaze once again.

"I love you, Nancy." he said, still staring into her blue eyes which glistened like waves in the sunset.

"I love you too, Ned." she replied, returning his smile. She leaned into him and kissed him on the lips.

She pulled her other hand away from his and snaked her arms up and around his neck as she delved deeper into the kiss. His hands touched her lower back and he kissed her back.

Most of the people at the restaurant were now staring and crowding around them and cheering. There was a thunderous applause—although that could have actually been lightning seeing as how there was a 63% chance of having a thunderstorm.

They finished their dinner and Ned paid the bill while Nancy gave a $5.00, unnecessary, tip.

They walked outside and stood under the overhang to discover that it wasn't just sprinkling anymore. It was actually pouring. Ned took off his jacket, from his suit—which he owned for special occasions—and draped it around Nancy's head and shoulders. She put her handbag over her head and she put his arm around her shoulders and they ran to Ned's car.

They were inside the car and they could barely even speak. Ned was so happy and he had the biggest smile on his face—a bigger one than Nancy had ever seen before—and she knew that if she had said no that he would be terribly disappointed and miserable. She could tell, even without knowing exactly what trouble he put himself into to get the ring, that he put so much work into finding the perfect one.

She was grateful, she really was, and she kept examining the ring and she really got to see how beautiful it was.

"This ring is wonderful!" Nancy exclaimed, trying to start a conversation.

"I got it specially for you." Ned piped up, grinning even wider than before if it was actually possible.

Nancy looped her arm with his and touched his arm with her free hand. She leaned her head against his shoulder and exhaled a huge sigh. She was almost content, but something felt like it was missing and she was determined to find out what.

They pulled up to Ned's dormitory and, when they got to the door to go inside, he held a finger up to his lips to tell Nancy that they needed to be quiet.

Ned's roommates were at a party so they wouldn't be there for a few hours.

"Why don't we change?" Ned asked.

"Good idea. This dress is making me kind of itchy and these heels are killing me, but they helped me reach your lips so it's all good." Nancy smiled as she slipped off her high heel shoes and walked over to Ned.

She put an arm around his waist and kissed the corner of his lips.

"What was that for?" he asked, sitting down on his bed to take off his shoes.

"It was just for the best, soon-to-be husband in the world." Nancy smiled.

Because she had been frequently staying in his dorm room for the past few weeks, Ned made a drawer just for Nancy's clothes.

She opened it up to get some pajamas.

"I'm going to take a shower and then call some friends and family to tell them about our success!" Nancy exclaimed, walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

Ned heard the water turn on and shook his head as he finished taking off his shoes. He grabbed for his cell phone and called his parents, telling them about the great news.

"That's wonderful, honey." his mother said. "I'm so proud of you two. You're all grown up. Tell Nancy that I love her!"

"Will do." Ned replied, smiling. "Have a great night. We love you."

Ten minutes later, Nancy was out of the bathroom. Her hair was wet and neatly combed back, her teeth were pure white, and she was wearing a sleek satin robe.

All Ned could say when he saw Nancy was, "Whoa."

The woman giggled and wore that bright smile of hers. She examined him to see if he was in his pajamas or if he was going to take a shower.

She guessed it was the latter because all he was wearing was his boxers.

"I'm going to take my shower. How about you call those people you want to call, babe?" Ned asked.

"Shoo. Shoo." she waved her hands toward him until he went into the bathroom.

Nancy didn't know who to call first. She was going to wait until the morning to deal with Bess and if she told George about it she knew that Bess would end up finding out. She knew that her father was on a business trip and it was the middle of the night there so the only people she could think of to call were Frank or Joe.

* * *

Joe was about to answer the phone when Frank came running into the kitchen.

"I saw the caller ID on the TV." Frank quickly explained to his little brother, Joe. "Hey, Nan. What's up?" he asked, obviously excited.

Nancy wondered if Frank knew anything about she and Ned getting engaged, but she decided to keep it a secret until she knew that he didn't know.

"I have some great news for you. Can you guess what it is?" she asked.

Joe, overhearing the conversation, started to call out different things. "You got a dog or a cat or a fish? You're moving? Bess is single?"

Frank looked over at his brother, a disgusted look on his face, and he could just tell that Nancy was staring at the phone.

"What?" she asked. "No. None of those are it. I was talking to your brother, not **you**!" Nancy yelled at Joe. "Now, Frank." she said calmly. "Do you have any guesses?"

"Let me think..." Frank said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. He looked up at the ceiling, as if the answer to her question was taped up there somehow. Frank thought back to the last conversation he had with anybody that was in constant contact with Nancy. Then he knew. "Ned-. Ned proposed... didn't he?" Frank guessed, slightly showing how disappointed he was.

"Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!" she joked. When there was no answer on the other end Nancy knew that something was going on. "What's wrong?" she asked, worried for the sake of her friend.

"Nothing... Nothing at all... I'm-... I'm happy for you... I-I really am..." Frank said, awkwardly. He wanted to be happy—in fact, he was happy that Nancy was fine and that she was happy—but it was really hard to be joyful when the person you have had a crush on since the first day you met, when you were a young child, was now getting married to somebody else. "I... I have to go now, Nance... I'm s-sorry... I wish you guys the best." Frank said, stuttering.

"Frank's going to have a nervous break down, Nancy. Sorry for his behavior. But I overheard what you two were talking about so I wanted to congratulate you and ask you this." said Joe. "When's the wedding?"

Nancy laughed. "We just got engaged tonight, we're not ready to get married just yet. You and Frank will definitely be invited to the wedding when we do though." Joe could sense Nancy smiling through the phone. "Have a nice night!" Joe called.

"You too, Joe." Nancy replied right before Nancy hung up.

Half-surprised, half-expecting that Frank would react as he did, Joe walked up the stairs and into Frank's room where he knew Frank had gone.

Joe knocked on the door and heard his brother moan. He took it as an invitation and plopped on Frank's bed.

"What do you want?" Frank asked, obviously distraught.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry-" Joe started.

"That isn't gonna help me much here." Frank replied, throwing one of his pillows at Joe and then looking back down at his hands.

"AND—that's right, I wasn't finished—that you should talk to Nancy about it and tell her how you feel." Joe suggested.

"How would that help though?" Frank asked, looking up at his brother. "Nancy's already engaged and she'll get married and she's with Ned. Ever since she was sixteen and she met Ned she's been smitten with him. She loves to talk about him and she loves to rip all of my hope of us being together out of my heart. If there was truly a chance between us it would have come before it was too late, but now it _is_ too late. She isn't going to like me back Joe and she probably never has."

"I have seen hundreds of opportunities for either of you to make a move, but, apparently, you two are oblivious to **your** _own_, _actual_ _lives_! You get so caught up in cases that the cases are the only fun you ever have. Well, Nancy used to be that way, but, now, she's moving on. You can either tell her as soon as you can or move on yourself. But believe me, one of those is a mistake. The girl hasn't fully moved on while you haven't _**at all**_. At least tell her your feelings. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? She can say no or Ned could tell you to leave that instant. It's better than getting the crap beat out of you. It's better to have the one you love know that you love them and that you have for a very long time than to never let them know and then have them never know the true you." Joe exclaimed.

Frank stared at his brother, his eyes wide in disbelief. He didn't know that his brother even knew what that meant. Frank wasn't expecting Joe to be honest and say something deep at all. He was expecting his brother to either give up on him or to say something such as, "Maybe she does like you. You never know." or something as "comforting" as that.

* * *

"Ned," Nancy started when he came out of the bathroom, "Joe asked me something and it made me think."

"Joe, making somebody think about something? We are both talking about Joe Hardy, right?" Ned asked and joked.

"Yes, it's Joe Hardy." Nancy rolled her eyes.

"And what did he make you think about?" Ned asked.

"About... marriage." Nancy found herself looking down, shyly. "I mean, I'm not ready for it quite yet, but I don't think it would hurt to plan a few months in advance. Would it?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Nance. Hold your horses! We haven't even moved in together and I'd rather be settled first and then married. I thought that you were the one who wanted to wait until you were in your late-twenties to have kids."

"You know you just said, 'have kids', right?" Nancy asked. "Because you are right about that, but I never said anything about having kids. I was just talking about marriage."

"What about school and stuff?" Ned asked.

"You have a month left before you're out of college because you wanted to have more job opportunities than I do. I already finished school. If we're going to get married and we want to have a house of our own we'll need to find one fast." Nancy proposed.

"Listen to me, babe. We can talk about this tomorrow, but I'm really tired right now so how about we fall asleep?"

"Okay." Nancy agreed.

Ned folded the covers back and went closest to the wall and then he let Nancy slip in next to him before he put the covers over them.

He put his arm around her hip and kissed her shoulder before falling into a deep sleep while Nancy, on the other hand, was stuck on thinking about how upset Frank had seemed on the phone.

* * *

**_A FEW MONTHS LATER_**

Ned had just gone out onto the stage next to the "best men". He turned around to see his father, who was one of the best men, and then Frank's tie was fixed.

The music for the bride to come out started on the organ and Frank looked toward the doors.

When he saw Nancy he couldn't help but let his emotions get the best of him. He bit his tongue to keep the tears from spilling out of his eyes. He had an even bigger smile on his face than when Nancy had said yes when he proposed.

Nancy's smile matched his and his eyes were watery.

She looked away from Frank for a brief moment to survey everything and everybody else. The food was in order and she saw the priest, Chief McGinnis, Hannah Gruen, her father, Ned's father, Ned's mother, Bess, George, Chet, Burt, Callie, Dave, Joe, Vanessa, Fenton, Laura, Aunt Gertrude, and Frank.

She looked back up at her soon-to-be husband. She found herself walking up on the stage, still looking at Frank.

She stood in front of him and heard the priest start talking. When she heard him say, "Speak now or forever hold your peace" she heard the scuffling of some feet and she saw Frank looking around nervously. "Just to make sure that nobody has any objections I will say once more, 'Speak now or forever hold you peace'." the priest said.

It was then that somebody stood up. She looked over at them, disappointed that somebody didn't think that they'd be good together. When she saw who it was. Frank—Frank Hardy—was standing up.

"I have to speak now." Frank exclaimed, looking around sheepishly. "I'm sorry Nan... and I'm sorry to you too Ned. You are the perfect couple, but I really need to say something that I've been wanting to say since we first met in middle school." Frank looked down at his brother who looked back up at him with eyes that told Frank to stop making a fool of himself, but he shook his head—knowing how much this meant to Frank. "Nancy Drew, I have to tell you this before you're married to Ned Nickerson, the man you love." Frank cleared his throat and looked Nancy in the eyes. "I love you and I have since that first day in middle school where we caught each others eyes. You were one of the most beautiful girls that I have ever seen and you still are. Then you came up to me at lunch when I was sitting alone because Callie and Chet were on vacation. We hit it off and we started talking about our classes and our friends and our families and we got to know more about each other than a lot of other people did. I was the first one to say that they loved detective movies and TV shows and books and I said that my Dad was one and that I'd like to follow in his footsteps. You told me about you wanted to become a detective too and how your Dad sometimes gave you little cases. We became close friends and, at least _I_, told my parents a lot about you. Our dads informed us that they knew each other and we hung out often after that until I moved schools because they had just finished building a middle school close to me—in fact, it was so close that it was in Bayport too. I always tried to make an effort to stay in touch with you and, if you hadn't too, we probably would have lost contact forever—maybe not though, seeing as how we have ended up working on cases together—but we might have forgotten stuff or something." Ned cleared his throat and moved from foot to foot uncomfortably. "My point is," Frank started, "I remember almost every time we've talked and I remember most of our conversations. I love you and I have since I was 12 and now we're both 24. I'm still loving you 12 years later. But now, I can see that you and Ned are itching to get married to I'll stop talking. I just wanted to make sure that you knew before you two got married otherwise I'd never forgive myself." Frank forced a chuckle to come out as he blushed uncontrollably. He said "excuse me" to everybody until he was out of the row and he walked out the doors. Nancy was blushing too, but, thankfully, nobody could tell that she was with her makeup on.

"I guess that's the end of it." Ned said, looking down sadly.

"No it's not." Nancy said, looking straight at Ned. "What Frank said was sweet and I do love him, but I only love him as a best friend and as a brother—nothing more." Nancy denied and explained. "I love you too and it's in a special way, like you're the love of my life, not like you're my brother." Nancy said, purposefully not saying anything about Ned being my best friend. She wished that Frank heard what she said, but he was outside the doors so she guessed that he didn't—although she was quite loud when she was talking firmly. "Let's get the show on the road!" she declared, smiling at the crowd and then back at Ned. "I want to be with my soon-to-be husband."

"Do you, Ned Nickerson, take Nancy Drew to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the priest asked Ned, looking at him.

"I do." Ned replied with satisfactory, nodding his head up and down.

"And do you, Nancy Drew, take Ned Nickerson to be you lawfully wedded husband?" the priest asked Nancy, as he turned to look over at her.

"I do." Nancy replied, her smile equally as big as his.

They gave each other the rings and held their hands tightly together as they looked deep into the others eyes.

"Ned Nickerson, you may now kiss the bride!"

Ned kissed Nancy and she kissed him back. She put one arm around his neck and, with the other, she threw the bouquet and Bess caught it as she squealed with delight.

Ned and Nancy pulled away for a brief second so they could get some breaths of air and so they could laugh at how Bess was reacting.

Nancy put both of her arms around Ned's neck and looked up into his eyes. "This is the best wedding ever." she exclaimed.

"Same here." Ned smiled, leaning down to kiss Nancy once again.

They pulled apart and Nancy rested her head on Ned's chest.

"You wanna know something?" he asked her.

"What?" she asked.

"You're the best _wife_ in the whole, wide world." he said, simply.

"And you're the best _husband_ in the whole, wide world." she replied.

* * *

Ned started talking to some people so Nancy politely excused herself and went out of the huge room and found Frank, sitting on the stairs.

Nancy stuck her hand in front of his face so he looked up, behind him and saw her. She looked so beautiful in her white-ish, almost blue colored dress that shined and sparkled in the sunlight.

He looked back down toward the street and it concerned Nancy a little bit. "Aren't you going to take my hand get up and go join the celebration?"

"Nah, I'm fine out here. I need the fresh air." he replied, almost lifelessly.

Nancy took off her shoes and set them down behind Frank. She brushed her dress down and then sat down next to Frank.

"What you said back in there was the bravest and sweetest thing I've ever heard. Nobody has said such kind things to me before." Nancy said, breaking the awkward silence.

"I'm surprised people haven't said better." Frank replied, still staring down at the street, watching some cars drive by.

"Look. I'm going to go join the party and you can either watch the cars or go in there with me." Nancy suggested, as she nudged Frank.

"I'm fine. I'll stay out here. Thanks though, Nance." he replied, looking up at her and then looking back down to the street.

"Whatever floats your boat." Nancy said, laughing slightly. She leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek.

She got up and bent back down just close enough to his ear that she could whisper a quick "thank you" to him before she picked up her high heels and brought them back into the building.

* * *

**_KatPartridge:_ Thank you. I'm absolutely flattered. I didn't think that I was good at making anybody feel like they were in the shoes of a character, but I'm glad that it is possible for me to do. :) Ah, I know! I felt so bad for Frank, haha. Yeah, Joe is pretty darn awesome!**


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